God

by Mark Kodama 

spring water 

When I died, I thought I should be

Prepared for any thing.

I thought it might not be the end

But possibly a new beginning.

But it could possibly

Just be darkness.

And we hear so much

About  a bright light.

So I figured I better

Get ready for anything.

So I figured

God could be man

Or woman

Or perhaps something

Else.

But I never thought

God could be a monkey.

It all makes sense now,

Since God is such

an ancient deity.

So there I was in heaven,

Prepared to argue

Why St. Peter should

Let me through

The pearly gates.

I stood at a wood table,

Looking up at the bench

And the three empty

Great thrones.

And then clerk of heaven

Called my case.

Jesus sat in the chair

To the right hand of God.

And of course,

To the left was an empty chair.

But what was most astonishing

Of all, God was a monkey.

I must of looked astonished

Because God looked

At Jesus and then the both

Looked knowingly

At one another

And then laughed.

Although I could not see him,

The Holy Ghost in the empty

Chair laughed too.

 So God put on his glasses,

And peered at the dossier

In front of him.

After reviewing the file

He looked up at me,

Obviously concerned

And then asked:

“Mr. Kodama,

Have you lived

A good life?”

God

 Neta Shlein

raspberry squash

The everlasting debate of whether God exists was resolved yesterday in the comfort of our playroom.

My son sat frowning amongst mountains of bags and toys, presents for his seventh birthday. ‘I can't find this lego piece,' he muttered on the verge of tears. I squinted my eyes, ‘which piece is that?' Marek poked his little finger into the booklet, at a drawing of what looked like a bone. Mummy should never fail to come to the rescue in cases like this, ‘I'll help you, don't worry, we'll find it.'

Stage A began with scouring the room for free-floating lego pieces, which I certainly remembered to have cleared earlier. I felt guilty without charge knowing that I have seen this bone-shaped lego piece this morning hoping against hope that I didn't throw it out.

Stage B was getting into the black bin outside and pulling out two top bin bags, the ones I had put there this morning. Everything was wet with rain but mummy - the knight in shining armour, or more rightly, a tired maid in a throw-away robe - couldn't care less. Everything and anything for her little boy to whom she had given birth only yesterday seven years ago. Bin bags were opened in the corridor, releasing stench of half-eaten pizzas, ice-cream wrappers and, yes, guilty as charged, hopefully, he didn't notice, cigarettes smell. Nope, the bone wasn't there. Bags closed, back to the room.

In Stage C, a sudden, vivid memory crossed my exhausted brain. There was a small round box involved. A whole chain of thought and decision making unravelled lighting up the inside of my skull as clearly as the 60-watt daylight energy-saving bulb lit up the playroom. I did think about slinging it out, but it looked too much like something although not particularly a lego piece, too big for that. I sat here and found that thing there; so then, I must've put it…

Triumphantly, in the simplest of movements, I reached and pulled it out of the small round box standing on the floor right beside us. ‘Here you go, sweetie, your lego piece.'  

He looked at me with no less than eternal admiration and said, ‘Mummy, you're God. And that means that God is real because here you are.'   

I went out the room, and he kept chanting, ‘You are God, you are God.'

Neta Shlein

www.blueefratcrafts.wix.com/natasha